Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Anti-Capitalist Myth: No Income Mobility in the US

This myth is constantly propagated by the Progressives as a justification for more government intervention into our lives, particularly our economic activities. But as this article from Reason.com points out, loads of evidence shows the tremendous resiliance and robustness of economic mobility in America:

"Contrary to the popular perception," the authors wrote, "we
find that percentile rank-based measures of intergenerational
mobility have remained extremely stable for the 1971-1993 birth
cohorts." According to their research, a child born into the bottom
quintile of income distribution in 1971 had an 8.4 percent chance
to reach the top quintile as an adult. For a child born in 1986,
that chance had risen to 9 percent. If anything, they concluded,
"mobility may have increased slightly in recent cohorts."

There's a lot more to this article worth noting, including a particularly insightful digression about how GDP is not a good measure of economic well-being or productivity. Good stuff.
BTW, for more on this topic, try here and here. [ht:cafehayek.com]